Boris Johnson is ‘living proof that the woolly mammoth can return from extinction’

The British foreign secretary was compared to a woolly mammoth in parliament Tuesday as ministers debated the future of scientific research after Brexit.

Conservative MP Jo Churchill asked ministers to ensure that scientific cooperation with Europe after the U.K. leaves the EU would extend to the preservation of threatened species, Politics Home reported.

In response, Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan said: “I don’t see why not. Indeed, especially perhaps as ... the foreign secretary is living proof that the woolly mammoth can return from extinction.”

Scientists say they are on the brink of resurrecting the woolly mammoth in a revised form, thanks to genetic engineering.

“Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant-mammoth embryo,” Harvard's George Church told the Guardian. “Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. We’re not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.”